What You Know of the World is Wrong: Expectation & Surprise
This workshop is part of the POETRY FESTIVAL
Robert Frost famously wrote, “No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.” That sounds great, but how exactly is “surprising” work actually created. This generative class will focus on how writers consciously shape a sense of expectations for the reader, expectations which might later be intensified or overthrown. We’ll write and workshop new poems throughout the week, and we’ll leave the session with several poems and a handful of new skills that can sustain us.
BIOGRAPHY
Matthew Olzmann's newest book, Constellation Route, is forthcoming from Alice James Books in January 2022. He’s the author of two prior collections of poems, Mezzanines and Contradictions in the Design. A recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, MacDowell, the Kresge Arts Foundation, and Kundiman, Olzmann's poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, the Pushcart Prizes, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Southern Review, and elsewhere. He is a Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and also teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.